


Boys Don't Cry

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Girl!LP, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-08
Updated: 2006-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chester wishes he could remember a time when he wasn't confused, a time where blue was for boys and pink was for girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys Don't Cry

Chester stands in front of the full-length mirror, smooths the soft cotton of the pale summer dress, which adorns his body down over his hips with his hands gently. His fingers brush against the elastic of the frilly underwear Brad had thrown at his head with a smile, the waistband of the material barely visible against the dress. They’d gone all out, shaved their legs, their faces and raided Sam’s makeup bags for products they knew how to apply. Upon his feet were open-toe sandals with a kitten heel, allowing his feet to fit in them with fair ease and permitting him the ability of movement without breaking bones. He’d always wondered what he’d look like as a girl. He prodded the empty bra beneath the fabric of the dress and sighed.

It had been fun, whilst it lasted, prancing around the house like little girls in their mother’s clothes. Yes, it had been fun, but it had left Chester now feeling slightly sated and morose. Coming down from a high he can’t remember ever reaching, he swipes angrily at a tear that slips over his mascara-coated eyelashes and kohl lined eyes. He drops his eyes to the ground, not blinking when he felt a pair of gentle hands on his waist.

Brad had changed back to his standard jeans and t-shirt a long time ago, leaving Chester to stare at his reflection in the mirror. At first he felt like a princess, him and Brad running around in Sam’s ball gowns and her dinner suits. It was fun. Was. Isn’t any more. Because Chester doesn’t see a princess any more, he sees a tired man with red-rimmed eyes because he just can’t stop crying now.  
Brad pulls him against his chest and their eyes meet in the mirror, whispers “You’re so beautiful, Chester.”

Chester stares at him with a steely gaze and mutters, “and you’re a liar.” Dropping his eyes to the carpet again he watches as his tears fall and break, and feels his heart do the same.

***

Sometimes, when he’s alone, Chester wishes he was a girl. Not enough to go and have an operation, mind you, but enough to momentarily contemplate rooting through Sam’s vanity case and applying her expensive mascara and eyeliner and her rouge and he ruby-red lipstick.

He only doesn’t because she’d notice he’d been going through her things, she’d ask questions. Just like Brad asked questions when Chester showed up on his door step in the rain, clutching a photograph in his hands and crying silently. Brad had stepped out into the rain beside his lover and taken the photograph from his grasp.

It was of them. They’d set the timer on Chester’s old-fashioned photographer’s camera that they had found buried amongst Sam’s old clothes and accessories. They had set the timer and then struck a pose, smiling broadly in their ball gowns and matching shoes and hastily applied makeup. Brad knew Chester had taken that experience to heart, but he wasn’t sure why. So he asked questions.

Chester had no answers to the questions they were asking. He had no answer when Sam asked him if he was philandering, he just stood there and gawped at her in disbelief. He lied, eventually, told her no...no he wasn’t philandering and she was the only woman for him. Yes, she was the only woman and Brad was the only man.

He had no answer when Brad asked him why their game of dress up had turned into such a tragedy on Chester’s part. All he could do was stand there in the rain and remember a time when he wasn’t confused, a time where blue was for boys and pink was for girls.

Now, sitting alone on the floor of his closet and staring at the clothes surrounding him, Chester is sick of the world - sick of everything being so complicated. He idly wonders when he began wishing he was somebody else, when he started wishing his body was curvy and beautiful.

Brad and Sam love him for the way he is, not the way he wishes he could be. But that doesn’t change the fact that he wishes he was different. He wishes he could be the weak one, wishes he didn’t have to be so strong all the time. He thinks that, just maybe, everything is falling apart.


End file.
